In the production of synthetic filament yarns, it is becoming increasingly more desirable to add to the fiber forming polymer substantial portions of additives which affect the properties of the resulting filament. In many instances, the additives are not fiber-forming materials and in many instances, they are not miscible or have incompatibility characteristics with the polymer being spun into fibers. Such additives have been increasingly required to provide improvements in fire retardancy, antistatic charcteristics, antisoiling properties and the like desirable changes in physical properties in the fibers.
Because of the different properties and often because of the immiscibility of such additives with the fiber-forming polymer, spinning difficulties are often encountered due to the changes in the physical properties of the filaments in the as-spun condition. For instance, the additives may retard the solidification or the crystallinity formation of the fiber, the temperature at which the fiber hardens, or the additives may result in a retained surface stickiness of the filament for a period of time after initial hardening of the fiber. Consequently, conventional spinning techniques sometimes produce inferior yarns when such additives are present. The delayed solidification or retained stickiness causes the individual filaments to stick together when the yarn is converged in the spinning column particularly as it is in nylon spinning just prior to steam conditioning. The filament adhesion results in what is referred to as "taping" wherein the individual fibers adhere to each other in a ribbon like form. Such taping during spinning inhibits the filaments to form a normal yarn bundle of individual discrete filaments.
It has been discovered that if the filaments can be successfully taken up without taping, difficulties in further processing are not encountered. The problem which arises with respect to filament adhesion does not reoccur if the filaments are successfully taken up without such adhesion after spinning. Presumably, the final cooling of the yarn and application of the spin finish eliminates such further problems.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus to converge a plurality of as-spun filaments in a spinning column which apparatus further retains such converged filaments separate from each other for passage through a steam conditioner tube.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method whereby synthetic fibers containing substantial amounts of additives can be spun in conventional spinning columns without the filaments sticking to each other.
These and other objects will become apparent from a description of the invention which follows.